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AT EVERY INJUSTICE

America’s historic genius for defusing threats to its power by incorporating them into popular culture is nowhere more evident than in its transparent appropriation of social media, routinely trumpeted as a revolution of egalitarianism and democracy.

That characterization alone should give us great pause. Since when has the United States pursued any avenue re. its status quo to which the word “revolutionary” may be reasonably applied? And why, of all times, would it start doing so now? Never before has the global elite so freely displayed the brutal fist of its true hand, nor staked a more deadly agenda on the failure of the American people to act.

We haven’t let them down.

We have tweeted, googled, blogged, texted, emailed, face booked, and instagramed our way through a progression of atrocities, any one of which would have propelled millions into the streets and jails not all that long ago.

Over on what remains of the Left, we wrote of the global elite’s genocidal pursuit of limited resources hampered by the now-surplus population of its former colonies. We discussed the economics of racism, the engineering of a huge permanent American underclass, the world banking system, neo-colonialism, the rape of the earth, and the inevitability of the West’s final move. We wrote of resistance, of community building, and, haltingly, of supporting distant revolutions.

It FELT like action.

But it wasn’t action.

And that fit in with the plans of Power just fine.

I have been thinking hard about how absorbing the Web can be, how complete an arena within which one can experience what feels like a political life …

It can keep you pretty busy.

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. Americans who’ve developed a mature political analysis are nevertheless… immobilized when it comes to action. We have been corrupted by neo-liberalism for so long that we have no viable Left, and cannot seem to conceptualize taking the first step in real resistance. In fact, we have been tested over and over, and we have told the elite what they want to know:

We will not resist.

We did nothing while America’s Black communities were mercilessly attacked for 30 years. We accepted the Weapons of Mass Destruction war crime. We did not defend the children of Palestine. Cardboard picket signs in New York did not shield them from the bombs. (They noticed this.)

We did not rush by the thousands to dismantle the legitimacy of the Mexican border , refusing to allow one more day of harm and citing the authority of humanity. We did not place our adult bodies between danger and Central American child refugees. They were bused back to their deaths, and not one of us blocked one bus.

We agreed to accept extreme martial law when the entire city of Boston remained indoors as tanks roamed the streets. Next, it’ll be Baltimore and Philly – because we obeyed orders.

Not every action takes tons of planning. It takes nothing but shared instincts and twelve hours for 5000 people to join three who decided to step in front of a bus.

I didn’t take that step. I’m just as responsible as anyone else,and I know that time is running out – as it never before has in history.

We CAN act. We MUST act. We must defy our nation before the world.

Writing does not take the place of direct action. It serves direct action.

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Che Guevara in a Conga Line in a kindergarten in Shanghai, 1960

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NOTE: To clarify, I’m not talking about demonstrations. The American government has a masterful ability to deflect the impact of peaceful demonstrations. And the Latino community can now demonstrate until the cows come home to no avail. They are now under real attack by serious enemies and it will take serious resistance by serious allies to defend them.

To twist slightly a well-known poet’s lyric, The Revolution Will NOT Be Televised, if it is to succeed. It will have to return to typewriters, handwritten notes and two-way radios if it is ever to succeed. The mass surveillance system is too well entrenched and Google and Microsoft are government collaborators. Yet if I even try to tell people to back off their wireless devices, even for health reasons due to the carcinogenic radiation they emit, I get nothing but a blank, annoyed stare.

Yes! I think it’s hysterical (in both senses of the word) when people rely with significant faith on Google/Microsoft security sytems and/or on expensive security provided by the rest of the “private” sector.
Good to hear from you, S.A.J.!

This hits the nail on the head! You’re right. Writing about an incident doesn’t change it in any way. People in the areas of the injustices do though seem to come out in droves. Where I live, in a seemingly simple small town in Pa where horse and buggies still drive down the street, not much happens to physically get to, in my neighborhood. My husband has been very vocal for many years on a political level and what he says now really sums it up – We let it happen. We didn’t stop anything. We yelled and argued and sang to the choir and the rest just stuck their head in the sand.

I know! It’s agonized me and driven me crazy for years. But the response ti Ferguson has proven me wrong in key areas and given me a hope I haven’t felt for a couple of decades. You?
I’m really glad you stopped by.
Thanks for your comment. I appreciate it!

I’ve come to the conclusion that any viable left in the US will have to be run as an underground decentralized network. US intelligence is just too effective at infiltrating anti-capitalist groups who hold publicly advertised meetings.